{"id":57,"date":"2007-12-26T15:17:22","date_gmt":"2007-12-26T20:17:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/jayceland.com\/blog\/archive\/2007\/12\/26\/the-quandary-of-doing-whats-right\/"},"modified":"2007-12-26T17:41:26","modified_gmt":"2007-12-26T22:41:26","slug":"the-quandary-of-doing-whats-right","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/jayceland.com\/blog\/archive\/2007\/12\/26\/the-quandary-of-doing-whats-right\/","title":{"rendered":"The Quandary of Doing What's Right"},"content":{"rendered":"

So recently I was involved in a discussion that didn't turn out to everyone's satisfaction. The scenario is this:<\/p>\n

I was at a social engagement where everyone knew one another fairly well; in a small-group discussion when one of the participants — let's say Jack — started describing a bigoted encounter he had with someone he associated with as part of his job. Just as he was about to quote the third-party, someone walked into earshot — let's say Jill — who's a member of the group who was targeted (and also the only person around who's a member of that particular group). So Jack stopped and said, \"I'll tell you in a minute,\" and everyone got quiet. I insisted that he continue and invited Jill to the conversation to hear — after all, this is a quote of an encounter, and not representative of his personal belief.<\/p>\n

So we all talked for a few minutes. Naturally Jill was shocked but apparently not upset at what Jack had to say. Things went okay and the topic changed and the group broke up a bit. Jack asked that I never put him in that situation again. I apologize but add that he shouldn't bring up such things in my presence because I would probably react the same way.<\/p>\n

The universal response has been that I was wrong. I should have let sleeping dogs lie, let the conversation go fallow because Jill probably didn't notice, and everyone would have been much more comfortable.<\/p>\n

Now I don't think my solution was ideal, but I think it was better than nothing. First of all, the argument that Jill didn't hear anything is specious — for if it was indeed true, then Jack should have continued without pause, and clearly even Jack felt that Jill could hear him. Second, I don't believe discomfort is as bad as it's cracked up to be — for is it better to maintain comfort or point out something unethical? \"Well,\" you argue, \"Jack wasn't really being unethical, right?\" At that moment, probably not, but I think that overall his behavior wasn't purely right. Here's what I think the chronology was in this case:<\/p>\n

    \n
  1. He had an associate who surprised him by saying something bigoted.<\/li>\n
  2. He disagreed with the sentiment but probably said nothing of it to avoid a conflict at the time.<\/li>\n
  3. I assume his association with this other person changed — perhaps he never needed to deal with them again, and perhaps he just avoids associating with them. But what he didn't do was to directly address the issue — for instance to say that he was disappointed that such ignorance persists in this day and age.<\/li>\n
  4. When relaying the story, he was not proud of his actions — and he did not want to reveal that he didn't defend the group to which Jill is associated.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    Let me put it another way, this time with a hypothetical encounter. Two guys are talking. One is Jewish and the other is not. The one who's not reveals that he works with a guy who's anti-Semitic.<\/p>\n

    DAVE: \"Don told me this off-color joke about Jews at work today.\" (unspoken: \"it's okay to say this because it wasn't me\".)<\/em>
    \nJOE: \"So what did you do?\" (unspoken: \"such jokes reinforce that being Jewish is inferior in arbitrary ways and I think you agree that this is not true\".)<\/em>
    \nDAVE: \"Well he's my boss so I couldn't do anything.\" (unspoken: \"I didn't want to make him angry because I might lose my job — or worse. You know how those people are\".)<\/em>
    \nJOE: \"What a prick.\" (unspoken: \"I would have hoped that you are a good enough friend to help me even if doing so is not to your immediate advantage. I feel disappointment because I now respect you less than I assumed I could\".)<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

    On the surface, Dave and Joe seem more comfortable than if they dug deeper — for there is tremendous discomfort that runs very deep. But is that really healthy? Doesn't it serve to reinforce bigotry? If Joe confronted Dave, I think Dave would react defensively — that he would be more upset about being called out for his lack-of-action than with the original situation.<\/p>\n

    So then you ask, \"what am I supposed to do about them? I'm not a bigot and I don't support them. Isn't that enough?\" Let me just put it this way: are you confident and proud of your actions? And I don't mean as a form of denial: can you really defend your beliefs, thoughts, and actions in a rational and sound way?<\/p>\n

    The reason why I live by this code is that it helps me get to sleep at night. For as much distress I cause in people, I need to come to the conclusion that I did the most right thing I could at the time — to be confident and proud of my actions.<\/p>\n

    I'm not thrilled about making Jack uncomfortable. I don't know if it changed anything for the better, if it made Jill upset, or if it disrupted Jack and Jill's relationship. But I think that what I did do was force Jack to reconcile his actions — for if he was proud and confident of his behavior, he'd have no problem facing Jill. (So I guess I have an ulterior goal to coerce other people to be the best they can be.)<\/p>\n

    The catch is that I don't know if I read the situation correctly. If, in fact, things happened like I thought they did, then I'm proud and confident of my reaction. When I look at my own life experience and situations in the past like these, I think my assessment was correct, though.<\/p>\n

    Now if only I could forgive myself for things I couldn't have known …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    So recently I was involved in a discussion that didn't turn out to everyone's satisfaction. The scenario is this: I was at a social engagement where everyone knew one another fairly well; in a small-group discussion when one of the … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4,6],"tags":[309,310,315,311,312,314,86,313],"class_list":["post-57","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-blog-entries","category-philosophy","tag-bigotry","tag-comfort","tag-confident","tag-discomfort","tag-ethical","tag-proud","tag-racism","tag-unethical"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/jayceland.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/57","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/jayceland.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/jayceland.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jayceland.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jayceland.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=57"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/jayceland.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/57\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/jayceland.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=57"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jayceland.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=57"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jayceland.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=57"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}